Assupol Tuks is the Momentum National Club Champions
The formidable Tuks cricket team is the new National Club Champions after they won the national tournament last week.
The Assupol Tuks Cricket team capped a brilliant season by winning the Momentum National Club Championships in Pretoria last week.
This latest edition to their ever growing “trophy collection” undoubtedly prove that Tuks is one of the best club teams in South Africa.
It is the fourth tournament this season in which the Tuks team was victorious. They won Northerns Cricket Union (NCU) Premier League for the 7th year running, defended their title in the NCU T20-Tournament for the 5th year running as well as winning the inaugural NCU Time Cricket Tournament. They lost out to Pukke in the final of the Varsity Cricket Tournament.
The ever modest head coach of the team, Kruger van Wyk, is full of praise for the way his players battled it out to win the Club Championships.
“It was a really young team. Seven of the players made their championship debut. I would ascribe our success to the players never say die attitude. The wanted to win and was prepared to fight until the last ball was bowled to ensure that they do so,” he said.
Heinrich Klaasen who was part of the Protea-squad that toured New Zealand earlier this season was named Batsman of the Tournament as well as Player of the Tournament. His best batting performance was scoring 139 runs in the game against the University of Fort Hare.
This year saw a new format come into play where only six teams represented the national franchises after playing qualifiers in their regions. All teams played each other throughout the week and the team that finished top of the log wins the tournament.
Tuks beat Kovsies, Crusaders CC and Fort Hare on the first three days with bonus points. On the fourth day of the tournament the Tuks men played their make or break match against Pukke (defending champion). In a way it boiled down to being the unofficial final as the he team who won would have enough points on the log to win the tournament.
Pukke won the toss and decided to bat first. After an exemplary bowling display, Tuks managed to restrict the team from Potchefstroom to 188/9. This nail-biter of a match saw Tuks bat till the third last ball of the day before they hit the winning runs, winning the match by one wicket.
The last day of the tournament was the match against old-time rivals, Maties. Tuks lost the match by 5 wickets but still had done enough during the rest of the tournament to be crowned as champions.
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